SpaceSimCentral

the bug s now again available for all

this would be the link to the SGM Ladybird, as soon as it's reviewed. http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/files/file/1073-ladybird-starfighter-sgm-version/[/url]

hmm... and erm... http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/1137/what-happened-to-collada[/url] i never liked it... 'twas just a "feeling", In my experience, it's a good-enough way to exchange data between systems. From a gamedev point of view, I don't think it's a good out-of-the-box solution and Right now for the choices for game assets are .obj (if you don't mind not having animation and no compression), .x (if you're using DirectX) or some proprietary format. nah, but i was really just guessing. i know "the dudes" will stay to it, nonetheless, just: i'm quite good in guessing, no? and also i'm no big friend of the .dds format, it leaves more artefacts as a 256color (8bit) bitmap (that's my recent experience with them, textures with soft shades between the colors loose half of their original look, next best similar color will be joined without any dithering. a very cheap kind of lossy compression i feel, sometimes you sinply loose a few pixels or a line as if it would have never existed, result is a patch in the same color instead of a i.e. blurred line). but compare yourself, it's only a "slight" loss or difference, but also sad for the effort one prob. put's into creating a texture.i scaled the pictures 3times up (without interpolation) for better comparison. first the "original" 24bit depth from whatever chosen lossless format (sorry for the large pictures, which slow down the pages loading time): now the 8bit dithered bitmap:(i have to say that i like the result of the dithering and the loss isn't to big) now the "preferred" .dds format:(edit, shit happens, it was the "wrong" one, but this here didn't looks much better) believe it or not, this loss of depth (not bitdepth, visual depth) is even noticable on the thumbnails on photobucket. (a very ugly section is on top right, a little left of the "engine" roundlet, one patch all in the same color, no dithering nothing, just a patch of the same color,it looks like i would convert a 24bit depth bitmap to 8bit without dithering, but even this offers better results, imho - "western look with fray" ) i i forgot "we don't want such fine shadings in colors" (or something similar, just to guess the answer). just some thoughts of mine, nothing serious.

something more positive, @geraldine, now i only have to find a way to make this possible for my original scripted version... and i noticed that the ladybird isn't in the shape i liked it, i made a slight mistake (transparency gets sorted now by the engine, thus cutouts with geometry won't work anymore, but to cut out with the texture i dislike, it looks really cheap and isn't precise (suitable for lod2, but i have to decide either one method and to let it really follow the guideline i will/would need a seperate texture for this, makes all in all not much sense in this case, either it's really modelled or it's just the diffudse texture. i used it only for lod2, thus it's hard to notice anyway. but first i will finish first this one) besides if one guesses this looks very close to a "eagle" or "courier", i noticed that to, but it's really based on a sketch, the similarity is because of the bezier curves.i just drawed a sketch in top view and determined the points for the bezier by guessing (e.g. "here 0 m height - next 0.5 m - next 2.0 m").the result isn't bad, even if it isn't perfect, the seams are well to see in the scripted geometry and there is a slight difference on the wing in height between front part and rear,there is a slight bump to see, but i can't make the whole shape from one bezier quad, this won't work (i could fix this prob. but it's also difficult because i have to keep similar heights and distances for front and rear of the wing section, it seems a slight error in this has leaded to this bump). intentionally, or my first design was a little different and had a tail instead to let it end like it it's now, probably i build once a "MK II" of this with a tail, it will look quite different for the rear view. the "councel" or cockpit is a bit lousy (because it's limited what you can do with scripted geometry, erm yes prob. another bezier shape), but on the other hand i like it how it is.

Hi Gernot. Just my personal opinion, but the main engines of the Eagle in the above picture do look better further in to the fuselage, but I also appreciate how difficult this is to do trying to balance it with the model's other properties. The only thing I can think of is to perhaps evolve the model (like you did with your wonderful Courier) away a little from the base Elite II look. With the Courier the changes you made to it did not compromise its overall look and feel. In fact (sooner or later) Frontier Developments will no doubt be releasing images of the Courier as it will be in Elite Dangerous. I am interested in how it will stand next to your model. Yours looks (to me at least) how I always envisioned a high definition version of it would look. I've also been looking at how the Eagle has evolved in Elite Dangerous. In the video below they seem to have added two triangles for the retro thrusters just below the wing tips. To me though this looks like an Mk II Eagle from Elite II. I don't know if they will be doing more Eagle models. 

dammit what have i clicked on, the system requested "turn 3D vision for SSC on?". what for, the clip isn't NV3D vision or is it? (and whatelse could be in 3D vision?) however super ship! it reminds me somewhat of sparks mk2 (the bulge on the back). AND IT HAS A COCKPIT WITH A HOMUNCULUS INSIDE! bigger and in red? IT HAS A COCKPIT WITH A HOMUNCULUS INSIDE! cool reflective windows, no "protective coating" might this be as reasonable as ever, but it's a game and games need such cool stuff to look at (into). "oh look at those cool graphics (hairdo's)"  --- well, actually it's not a eagle, the similarity wasn't wanted, but it turned out this way because of the modeling system (based on beziers) what do you mean exactly, even deeper in the fuselage as they are already? it won't be no problem for the "solid" (SGModel) version. thank for you compliments about the oldest of my models, never thought it's THAT GOOD, but well... besides if you would see the collision mesh of the "Manta" (that's how i named this ship, a following one will be the "Stingray" with the mentioned tail instead of the "liftback"), it looks nearly as the basic (original) courier itself. like i said it wasn't my intention, it turned out this way, bezier curves are alway a little similar because there is the same mathematical rule behind.in other words, a curve and a following curve in the counter direction can have only a limited radius, this makes them so harmonic, it's not possible to make a pointed edge or curves below a certainradius, from a point on given by the rule the curve flips (would flip). i had once opened a good page where one could heve experimented with the two sorts of curves, quadric and cubic, to see & feel the difference also you see when the curve starts to flip as soon as youcross the handles (for a bezier point resp. two for a cubic one). if you look at the skin of the "Manta" you can still see the curves i have drawn, because the paneling is nearly like i drawed them. only the unfinished horizontal in the middle doesn't belongs there, it would be the seam between the bezier shapes, if it would be a straight line through the centre.and the middle of the 4 lines in vertical direction, the rest reflect the points of the bezier shape('s, four for the top). you see if you start the design this way it ends always somewhere between a eagle and a courier (while i really avoided to pull the wingtips to the front, this would have made a complete "eagle").yes and no, the original FE2 models use only "bezier flats" (what i used for the bottom), because FE2 has only flat shading this won't matter and a lot is left up to the eye to imagine the shape. he, he, there is also a cheap trick on the old FFE eagle, because of the only orthogonal textures it isn't possible to texture bezier shapes (except for some "noise" or a gradient, the geometry is quasi streched over the whole texture, in general only tris and quads), to show in FFE the nozzles on the wingof te eagle he simply overlayed a quad."theunis" who scrambled the objects of FFE long ago was suspecting it could be a "damaged part" (to show evtually a damage), but it's just a trick. probably with some extra effort i can let the nozzles sink in even on the scripted version, i noticed or obviousely the main lines, those which i have drawn, stay in any LOD down to the collision mesh (which really reflects simply the lines i drawn and it's a bit crumbled, what you can't see with the multiple divisions on the higher lod's. 9 quads for divisions 1, if you stay to divisions 1 you get already 36 quads, with 4 divisions multiplied with 4 lods you get to 144 and reach quick a very high amont with higher divisions, while this model uses 4 divisions, thus lod1 reflects exactly what i have drawn "1 * 4 = 4" ) the rear is a bit a trick, usually you would use a flat for such a part, but the flat has uniform normals which means it would look flat instead of curved (no shading).in such cases i abuse a bezier quad and set, in this case the divs fixed to 1 for the vertical points (that means only one section in vertical direction). better in such a case would be a bezier triangle, but dammit quads are complicated already, but with the bezier tris i have war.i know this or that and whatsoever, but each time i like to create one the resulting shape is anything else as i expected. the only one(s) i used so far are in my new scripted groundstation to form the needle pointed tower in the center, for them (or in fact one single which i rotated later) i needed a whole day i guess. the idea was if i use the same points for all four (each created or a single one later rotated) they should fit to each other exactly, but it took my several attempts until i reached it.and i guess my transscription of the "turner class" use a bezier tri as well, but that was a rather easy one, because most of the points was already given (a bezier flat needs ony the points around the shape) it was easy to determine some new ones (lower/lift point "xy" by so and so many units) i like the turner class, it's a unique design, i never have seen another spaceship looking so organic and having a wagging tail, to me the turner looks like a enslaved animal, a giant whale of some sort, sattled with a engine part.and amongst all those "modern" often similar blocky looking ships the old bezier stuff from FE2 is still something special. i guess i showed once the architectal use of the bezier curves, "Munich Olympia Stadium" just to name one, or the "Sydney Opera".these "free hanging" constructions are only possible with the characteristics of a bezier, which likewise a sphere lead all forces to the ends (in the case for the opera i.e. the bottom,compare this also to a levee, or the reason why it's impossible to break a eggshell if you enclose it in your fist, except you use more power on one point, e.g. press hard with the middlefinger). apart from the statical advances they simply look cool and "organic" ("organic" how Frei Otto describes it, "worth to live or work in"). it is in fact and that's the fascinating thing about the beziers, 100% harmonic to us humans, even or especially because in other terms, when it's a "just" mathematical expression.and truely yes nature is full of beziers, if something is grown and not manmade. part of the "concept" some see behind our existance, while i think "fascinating", this concept is to find in all the universe.obvious that the still very religious mathematicians and astronomers of the earlier days have seen gods concept behind such harmony rules,because they was stunned and thought "dammit not only we "feel" it's harmonic, it's harmonic because of a universal rule". at this point it's allowed to ask:"isn't it obviousely just harmonic to us because we are part of this universe? it can't be different, even when the conditions would be different it would appear still as harmonic to us"true yes, but i guess for this here physical present universe, the rules are overall the same thus the perception of harmony will be similar, even for a liquid crystal or silicon based organism. but maybe bezier stuff will look to them as strange as to us looks a fractal of some sort.and likewise i would state "the universe is full of beziers" - he would counter: "no, it's full of fractals" personally i rather believe all is occasionally even what looks so conceptual or given to us.it started simply with "there can't exist nothing without something" or in other terms "to have infinity, something must be finite".(still i think binary, black or white, 0 or 1, each can't exist without the other, nothing really new so far, but otherwise surprising how old this knowledge is and how deep it will reach into the infinte future).i really guess that the rules, the physical things grew with existance, it wasn't given or planned, it found itself to what it is.and well how liitle the (infinite) difference might be between 0 and 1 (exactly 1), this tiny difference constructed everything we see.metaphysically spoken there is no bigger power in the whole universe as the difference between "not existant" and "existant".as between "true" and "false". i was surprised to see a BBC docu which covered most of my ideas (building a universe to undestand it), really i thought (besides of the lame idea to construct it on a tower sitet on earth) "do they have secretly listened (readed my posts)?" but ok there is still a possibility for a superintelligence which laughes her ass off seeing us struggling every day: "i do like those fur soled forest inhabitants (apes), they're so refreshing young and wild". at this point a clip, even when this is not the musical thread here.  we often argue about this and that, things which happened in the past (and will in future), bad things mostly like war, slavery (all sorts of, even womens suppression),but what would we be without that? not as half as "refreshing". phew, i guess i travelled half around the galaxy right now, good to have a reliable spaceship which will bring me home. the threads title doesn't fit to well anymore, but how should i entitle it "gernots thoghts about geometry, harmony and the deeper sense behind"?that's to long.

well, actually it's not a eagle, the similarity wasn't wanted, but it turned out this way because of the modeling system (based on beziers) what do you mean exactly, even deeper in the fuselage as they are already? it won't be no problem for the "solid" (SGModel) versionThis is exactly it Gernot. With LMR it is not possible because of the beziers, yes? What I was thinking was, is there a way to "cheat" Blender into recessing RCS thrusters? Looking again at your Courier's[/url] or Imperial[/url] Hunter's nacelles, there are 4 retro thrusters on there. How did you do that? They look perfect! :girlcrazy: With your Constrictor[/url] I guess it was possible because it is a different shape that allowed cut outs. The Racing[/url] Eagle also came up with some interesting solutions, but again a different model. This is likely a silly idea but what about a simple skeleton or wireframe built inside the hull so that the thrusters are mounted on it but still close enough to the hull that the thrusters stick out through holes in the fuselage , could that be a way to work around the bezier problem as you could make the wireframe any shape you like as long as it was within the confines of the outer hull?

erm, tricked? dammit geraldine it's a ugly little cup looked from close (the retro thruster nazzelles on the courier and interceptor/hunter, cut away the half of the cup and the rest is texture)i do remember well when i made them, the first build was with CarCAD, then i reworked the model for the first time with "Zanoza", it was right then when i decided to replace the octagonal shapedengine pod, resp tip of it with this "onion" shape, which i simply dragged out of a sphere, adjusting the "rings" (latitudes) in distance and diameter manually but sometimes the point isn't how it's made, the expression matters, what releases it in a perceptor, does it look harmonic or does it look "displaced". again it's simply the bezier shape of the courier which makes it looking good, while i didn't used beziers back then and the shit was made triangle by triangle, i just followed the outlines of the ship,and watched very often the very basic 3D view (only edges with a shading on them) it's something i still do often when i model with blender i.e., i can look at a model quite long, turning it around to look at it from all angles to see how the shading changes. i have some favorites toi like the wave, it's a really nice ship, imho still the nicest of the recent releases.it has exactly the shape of what one imagines under "hypersonic fighter" Mach 21 or something like that. of course nozmajner makes good ships, not my choice but i respect the crafty work. before i loose the trail, Geraldine, yep working with "solid" geomery is quite different and holes and such things are mainly a question of the will to make them and a probably very high resulting polycount. i guess the differences between "racing eagle" (funny name) and the scripted earlier versions is exactly this, one is scripted geometry with all the limitations it has, or special solutions for certain problems.in general in a scripted geometry i can't make a "solid" hole, for a "solid" geometry it's no problem, there is this nice tool called "Boolean operator" which simply decides between two meshes you like to joinhow they should be joined, one inserting to the other or make a union of them? that's why it's called "boolean operation" it's either one or the other (to differ from boolean in logic, which is simply "true" or "false". what you can do is to work with transparency for scripted geometry and the "rotten LMR" or determine new points to create a new shape for a inlet window i.e. (ladybird i.e.)for this (such should exist i only don't know the name of the function) i wrote two little helper functions, one is"interpolate vectors", which simply computes the halfway of each dimension, handy if you have a geometry someone else has written, in this way i sectioned first the front quad of the ladybird,by performing "halfway of halway of halfway" (quasi section in the middle, section this coordinates again in the middle and section probably a third one and you got the proper coordinates like you would slide over the surface, TomM used often "vector lerp" which is used for animating things usually, but you can also set a fixedvalue instead of a timestream, e.g. vlerp(0.5,v(1,0,0),v(-1,0,0)) the result would be in this case v(0,0,0) (the middle), it's pretty much the same except vlerp is more flexible as my "interpolate"and "mirror x", this tiny function is really a big help, you only have to write either the leftside or rightside vectors and use "mirx(v_so&so)" to get the point mirrored over x axis.it shortens typing for lazy typers. once you got the points for a inlet you can create a new geometry around or into it, the cockpit is "extruded" also in this way. you see quads, tris, flats no problem you can either create a new geometry or work with transparent set geometry to cut things out (sharp). obviousely yes one can set the texture transparent, your examples or the car i posted, but like i said it looks ugly because of aliasing, and even the best setting on your gfx card to handle such "fence" type cutouts leaves either a aliased or blurred border then, further it's not precise, you can model something behind (into) it, but it's difficult to get tight to the "cutout" shape. (especially with the "z-boost" many games boost the geometry (blow up) to let it look smooth even when there is a sharp edge, it's how coolhand stated once a ugly cheap solution, but modelers like him dislike anything which is not true geometry). the very "cheapest" game i own which uses texture transparency everywhere was "Käfer Total", wheel housings and everything which is in a sort cuts the geometry is made with the alpha channel.the wheels have only 8 sections that's extremely low and the drivers helmet is in fact a sort of heavy smoothened cube.it's no big game and nice to play for a weekend, but each year i play it once, the game itself isn't bad and it's real fun to drive those beetles with the apropriate 60's surfmusic soundtrack.but the models are something of the cheapest i have ever seen, while it isn't as old as NFS4 or SCGT. second problem is that some ATI gfx cards have problems with pixels which are probably still present under a 0 alpha channel, .png allows this and you could use this to cut a hole and nonetheless, show then the texture which is still present on the inlet part. beziers are a problem, if you can start at a given orderly line (quasi the ones you drawed) it can work since you can determine then the proper points.i.e. for a cubic_bezier_quad you have such a layout: | | | | | | | | | | | | any other divisions / sections will be computed and these points you can't know, or prob you could but i'm no mathematician who has the bezier expression "build in" (theoretically it's possible to calculate any of the computed sections). but like i said if it's possible to use the ordinal points it could work with a cutting geometry respectively however you cutted the surface to close exactly to the shape with the underlying part. for a lower lod one could disregard the gaps if it's not really tightened to it, you won't see this. on could draw a bezier patch around a hole if you know this in advance where it will be, it will never be really a circle and of course no quad or tri, just some curve.but if done in this way you can use the same points for another bezier which forms then some inlet section, all "curvy" of course. if there is someone who reads this and is interested in making a (cubic) bezier quad shape, here's a little helper.imagine cubes (aha "cubic") which fill and cover the the shape you like to reach.you can see on the layout how it looks in 2Dbut as example and to give a idea you can take a shape in blender and position some cubes in a scale that they cover the whole geometry (orderly of course, not displaced, but the cubes can have different side relations, depending on this the shape will be more acute or lower rounded, bulged or sunken in). the outlining points of the cubes will be more or less the points for a cubic bezier quad. another method to determine the points in blender would be to take 8 bezier curves and form such a grid as above.it won't be accurate, bezier curves of blender act i little different to a true cubic bezier that's why a bezier shape which exists even in blender shows not the proper points if you take them from the handles ends. the method with the cubes comes much closer to the expected result.once one understood this "filling with cubes" he could do this on a sheet of paper or "simply" all out of the mind (imagine shape and "cover" it with cubes). if you imagine two squares like this, b c | | |a 

d and connect now a, b, c, d, with a cubic bezier curve it will be close to half a circle inside the two quads b | |a

c this would (should) represent a quadric curve it uses only one point for the curve and ends always in something like a parabellum. the cubes as imagined and what will result if you take the outlining points of the cubes for the cubic bezier quad you start at lowest height and next "row" is already on top of the cubes, overall 16 points form the cubic bezier shapein fact the shape you see was made with this help.but once you experimented with this a little you won't need such a help anymore. the cubic ones are imo the easiest to understand bezier shapes, because to imagine the cubes and how the curves will follow the points isn't hard. (intentionally i liked to build on my models and now i'm writing things no one will read ) besides (tech note, who ever might like to read this, prob. it belongs to the wiki ) i stumbled in the Wiki over the sentence "The boolean operator is broken somehow"i don't know i use blender since 2.49 and updated from time to time let's say every half year, but the boolean isn't "broken", it's just different to how it was before.i had some slight troubles myself in the beginning, because naturally i expected "select object1, then "shift" select object2 to it and apply the operator, this wont work and blender will state it can't proceed the boolean.the difference is now you have to select only one object, preferably the one you like to modify, then enter the name of the object (give it a simple name, even when blender autocompletes entered glyphs) which should perform the boolean into the tiny name prompt of the tools window.and here you go, it is even much better as before, the operation isn't performed until you confirme it (non destructive), thus you can easy switch between the three possibilities to see which get's the proper result.further and this is the best part about it, it works much better as before, it leaves far less cutted faces and it's overall a very clean operation which alters the surface far less as before, the resulting mesh will have n-gons, but that should be no problem. you remember that when a edge is close and in the same direction as a edge of the object which should perform the action thing got a little messed up, this isn't longer the case, seems prob. bound to the result in n-gons, anyway blender knows know exactly how to keep the original edge. the tiny artefacts which was often a result of a boolean (edges only sometimes, sometimes very tiny faces) has been avoided to. "waste" has been removed and only the new geometry and the object which performed the boolean will stay (before you had three, the original shape, the selected objects to perform the boolean and the resulting shape. good and not so good, because i liked always to keep the original shape, one can never know and more as once it became handy to have a trashcan (a reserved layer for trash objects).did something wrong? old mesh is "futsch"? to sad! again to the class of it, it's really good (since 2.64 i guess), if you have a symmetrical geometry, e.g. the bottom of my "Manta" and perform a boolean the resulting shape is sectioned exactly symmetrical,this was never the case before. actually i'm using 2.71 (and still sometimes 2.49 to export the direct x meshes and start a new project) and by all the reservation i had in the beginning with the new surface i really start to like it, many tools have been approved,it's just a bit annoying sometimes to find out the most basic and simple things, like creating primitives, ok easy toolshelf, create a primitive and the i get a cylinder sectioned 32 in return?"where are the options?" "what they wrote should appear i can't see a shit, ther is no tool shelf, where is it?

until the "idiot" noticed there is a small "+" sign on the bottom line when you click on it it opens the options, nonetheless why doesn't such things pop up by themself? (while this is stated in the wiki "select primitive to create and the options will pop up" if you read such you wait a long time for a menu to pop up, the only thing which probably pops up is your temper). i'm pretty sure there are many who still search for the options to determine the sectioning of a primitve, they hided it very well. about such simple things you find nothing in the wiki, ah well they show you how this field looks, but won't tell you that you have to click on this tiny hidden "+" (lower end of the screen is stupidnonetheless blender arranges all window headers on the bottom line, i think that's not practical and the first thing i always do is to arrange things like menus on top.the bottom line is something you don't see so well on a big screen and you often even slip into the windows taskbar. but matter of choice one good thing is you can arrange blender to your preferred view.i'm a bit a mule and as much as i disliked GIMP i disliked the new vieport of blender... until i got comfortable with it. likewise when i used "3D atlas of the solar system" to find some coordinates on mars i.e. i always thought there must be a lat & long value somewhere to see but i couldn't find it.intentional would be you hold the pointer a few seconds over a point and it would show a little banner, but no the coordinates are on the very right bottom where your eyes won't point to.i feel the bottom line should be "reserved" unused by anything else as the taskbar, but this is my opinion. animation keying is approved as well but you have to be careful with a new installation, it took me a while to get rid of the default auto keying, which is annoying when you create shapes, because it will set for each action you perform a key to the object, might be you won't notice one or two of them and the mesh won't be loaded in pioneer. --- but imho, (while it has gettin' a little better) it still leaks of fighters and still you start with a quite good ship instead of suitable one for a nobody like "Jameson".also i'm not convinced if the high prices of the ships are really a good idea, again here stands gameplay countering to realism. of course 30'000 bucks are (or seem) far to less for a spaceship, but you don't like to play for real a decade to buy the next better ship, won't you?looking at the scale in prices now and that the income isn't much more as before, i assume it will take aeons and trading will be even more useless due to that. again i refer now to my old board game, nothing, none of the prices are realistic, if that would be the case we would still play the first game after 20years playing time.you need for this unrealistic pricing, besides multiplying everything with ten makes only bigger numbers, though what for?you can play such a monopoly like board game with cents and a total bet of 50 bucks, or you can play it with 1000 an 10'000$ bills, but it's still the same, only the floating point moves. my pops the always reasonable man asked very early when i had my first console, "why does the points count have be so high if the lowest amount of points you can gain is 100?it could be as well 1 and it would be the same" hmmm... well to a man like him probably "daddy, a million looks far "better" on the screen as 10 points"nah, he's right 100 points or 1 point it's the same, cash 100$ for something or 1$, it's the same if the relation between the things is the same. and truely in the days of arcade machines it should give a nube after three mins of playing time the feeling that he has played well and the numbers got bigger and bigger over the yearsfor no real reason, you really could strike all the 0's out. it's just this "wow i made a million pts" until "chuck" came along and played 4-6 hours with one coin "ok i thought i was not bad". there exist good counter examples to this "Shark Shark" (get the Shirt) was never ment by the developers of intellivision for the broad market they thought it's a preschooler gameand they kept the points count quite low 5, 10, 20 pts, nonetheless it became a classic and one of the most wanted games for this system. still the concept is a 2D classic and i guess clones of it are to find on countless handhelds. even if a space sim (any sim) counts various other points as just "score" the money in a game is a sort of score, by this you measure usually your success.other counters should be hidden, i remember that some wondered what FE2 counts all, it's quite a lot and wished that some of this would be visible for the player,though tools came up like a "rank teller" which showed you how far you are away from the next ranking.but imo this should be hidden, somehow it's annyoing that you don't know your progress, on the other hand exactly this forces you to, because you will know your progress with reaching of the next rankhow long this might ever take, you like to reach it. this contradicts to many games which show, maybe because of users wish, exactly your powers, showing your status in various gauges, but imo this takes out a lot of magic of a game,if you know exactly what enemy you can stand then it's no surprise, no real success to win.but if i'm "in the dark" and have no idea if i can stand a fight (doesn't matter what sort, from pokemon to pioneer) the feel of success is much greater.vice versa to games like the named pokemon or final fantasy type role playing where you have stats for every little thing up to how many hairs you have on you head. it's and i fall back now again to this a different kind of players and i know ppl (this is no accuse) who state already in the beginning "what's the purpose" will never have much fun with this type of game. you and me we know this well i guess. because pioneer or FE2 the Q's are often still the same "what's the purpose"ok, i would say if you don't know the purpose of it you will never like the game, at least this is my experience. and ppl's what i imagine for a "big space game" will blow your minds or you might think sucks completely.but i would wish to start a online space sim, starting the game right here on earth with nothing at hand, everything must be explored and builded first (not the engine, but what appears to the player). "here we are a bunch of spacefarers and we like to make ourself into space" - ok invent a suitable drive, prob you won't have and it has to be discovered first.this could go on step by step and unfortunately yes for later joining players it won't be the same anymore, but even this could be part of the game, after years..."here we are the veterans, like to hear a story from the good old days?"no invented story, something a player has experienced in his long carreer. what we (you) been looking for to give it a reasonable background will be the game itself. there won't be no "epsilon has been discovered first", discovered first will be what is discovered first and by whom discovered it first. it's this step in the darkness which i would like, to do a hyperjump and not even knowing if i arrive at the target, or when i will arrive, probably never, locked in hyperspace, why not.dammit shit, now i have to start as "Jameson" again, such (and similar unpredictable occasions) will avoid that veterans will never die. it's balancing the game like with "artificial income", unrealistic stockmarket prices as example, to compare to my old board game money flows in and you don't have to act for it,just enough to keep it running.like i said else we would still play the first game. i like to have things influenced by players decisions, such could finally kill a whole system or let it prosper. back to pioneer,the reason for Q's like "what's the purpose" is obviousely that you have to write your own storyline and screwing on this and to implemnt fixed story eklements i never liked for this single player game. and isn't it true that we Elite veterans have a lot of memories?and aren't these very personal memories? "how i bought my first bigger ship""how long it took me to understand this or that""the worlds i explored or did placed my mining equipment""how many fights i stood while doing recon missions" all this creates your personal story and it isn't to replace by a given plot. but like i said choices are different and i'm aware it's the lesser amount of players which will like such a game, it was always this kind. the hyperspace range is imo far to big and has getting even bigger (due to >2000tons ships? then trash such things imho, they don't belong to this game i feel.)on the other hand i see the reason in the huge galaxy, ok, but nonetheless around 10-20LY is fine, the wider the range gets the less places you will notice. it's what i stated once why a extraterrestrial race or we self would need a vast fleet of explorers only to find a sign of life in the galaxy. it could be around the next corner, but what distance is suitable then? 10LY and cover every little spot or 1000LY and be able to fly to the center of the galaxy,but how much will you miss with such a range (i see this also as a part of a really big space sim, "how to find a inhabited planet, where to find it? is it far away or close? the player(s) shouldn't know this.we (the imagined community) has to find a apropriate way to descover one, large fleet? short range jumps or randomly stiching into the galaxy, i guess the chances would be pretty the same. i know it's the common wish of everyone to have a bigger range and excuse me to me it looks exactly like this it has been screwed up over the years because some was dissatisfied with the low range.then next came up and still was dissatisfied and they will be still be dissatisfied when they are able to measure the galaxy with one jump "how do i get to andromeda?". that couldn't be the idea and of course we all wished a better range for good old FE2, but it wasn't possible to call Frontier up and tell "i feel the lhyperspace range is far to little for the size of the galaxy". no we had to mess with the limited ships and exactly that's the point (again) limitations make the game interesting. i think it's good now that the players status has a influence on missions (finally) --- wouldn't it be a sort of cool to have a coop game?in my imagination the starting clan has to gather themself first together before anything can happen at all. devs could decide the obstacles for players while they are playing and based on their success however you like to measure this, it must not be money, it could depend also on homogenity of a clan. that's neither relly new i guess, such mpg's already exist in one or the other way, even if i can't name one. but i'm also aware such must be deveoped by a tight closed circle.and infos will be rare like the infos are/was rare for elite4. truely this leaves the general idea of pioneer far behind especially because it won't be a single player game, not everybody would like such i guess, but i think it would be worth a try.

the models are approved and ready to download both will work also with walterars scout+ release you find his project now on sourceforge. https://sourceforge.net/projects/pioneersp/?source=navbar[/url] you will have to lower the price of the ships by 100'000 for walterars scout+ besides anyone has a idea what has happened to the money cheat?if it's removed then i wonder why for a alpha or beta release, anyway a money cheat belongs even to a final release.you don't have to cheat and each is responsible himself. but to work on models especially ships you need this, ship costs >100'000 how can i buy me one to see if everything works as expected.the MV is good for a first check, but lighting is different in the game and specs you can't check in the MV, you have to use the ship to see if they are good.(lowering the price to 1 would be a solution, but there is always this risk that you publish a ship and you forgot to enter the real price, a cheat is much more comfortable anywayi already modded the startup ships to get me enough money to buy the ships i'm working on (as a mod which i can use by need)) though if it's removed for real then it was a bad decision from my pov. something else,don't you think as well the models receive far to less light?poneer has getting "darker and darker" over the years, "Vlastans" buildings was once near to white now they are a medium grey.not to talk about my ships who was build for older releases which had a far brighter lighting, i feel i wear dark sunglasses if i play the game now. and if at all, about this i argue since i don't now, the modelviewer should show the same lighting, else it's hard to determine how the ship will look finally.but it's double as bright as the models appear in game. i remember that already some years ago some argued about my dark ships, i would say sorry not my fault i didn't lowered the lighting. ha, ha, funny, i've read the wiki that one should use the "tag_landing" instead of the collison mesh, because of the newly added shield component,but the ships rest on the shield nonetheless, tag_landing "hin oder her" (yes or no).would it be very hard to restrict the shield from collision detection except for laser fire and missiles? i mean if i can interprete a geomflag and say it should perform this or thatcertainly i can hard code it and tell "shield receives collision detection only from weapons, or am i wrong?(respectively it will simply be excluded from determining "ship.aabb", but also collision detection, because it's slightly bigger as the ship usually, and if i collide with the dimensions of the shield then i can trash the collision mesh because it's useless then) you have the specific name "shield", why don't use it as a name convention?"shield" is shield and has this specific collision detection.(scheisse muss ich jetzt das shild wieder enfernen, es stört mich ungemein)should i say now typical? the idea else i like much and it looks good, exept maybe i'm not sure if it would be possible to deform something like a energetic shield, in my imagination they will be always a sphere, it's a sort of energy and this expands in space in spherical dimensions, i can't "bend" energy or it's hard for me to imagine.and if i can under the conditions of sci-fi, then well spaceships build from material are useless, because if i can give a energy a mass and a structure directly whatfor do i need steel or plastics? it would become all obsolate and something like "shaped-energy" will replace easy all materials.something can be handwavy i haven't much problems with that, but one must think the idea to the end, what would be the result if this or that is possible. it's a logical problem, likewise the "beaming" (any energetic transporter system) and the "food processor", both go in derection "direct convertion from energy to mass",if i could do this for real, well i reach exactly this point, no more spaceships needed, i can use "shaped-energy" and this will replace any material, prob. with specifications which stand out from anything in the universe. instead of a spaceship you would then fly around in a transparent bubble, it's to imagine, but not funny for a modeller ;)common rocket engines however, would become totally obsolate if you ever could handle this, no propellant needed, nothing except energy in a specific "shape" (conditions).that's really not funny and the reason why i would forego transporter systems ans food processors in a sci-fi story it's not only hand-wavy, if thought to the end itwould "destroy" the story. sci-fi is fine - "magic" isn't good, it leads to godlike power and, sanbox experience, the game (or story) has ended before it has started. energetic shields are already problematic for me to imagine, but they belong to sci-fi like the sea to a sailor.or at least in such a way that they would have a clear border and a given shape - shaped-energy again and "boing", a logical gap.if i imagine energetic shields they would act like energy, means loose energy in relation ^3, won't have a clear border and certainly no other extensions as spherical. if it think further about this problem it would be prob. cool to have different shields, "fore", "aft", and "wings" probably, all in spherical dimensions, which would probably leave under certain condition a small part even uncovered and of course receive the proper impact, which would mean i.e. "fore" shield is low because of impacts, while the others still are up (idea: dimension of the shield could be also depend on amount of mounted shielding aggregates, one shield might not cover all of the ship then). just as a idea, but however i guess if the ships won't rest anymore on the shields dimensions i would prefere personally a clean sphere. --- goodthe navigation lights are flashing not so goodthe flashing frequency is to slow, resp. the time they stay on, they shouldn't use the whole amount of half a second, 0.1 seconds are fine for a flashing navigation light.if you would use additionally (white is not flashing i know) a flashing white one with a pause of 0.1 seconds to the either red or green navlight then it comes very close to how it is in reality, "long" pause - white flash - short pause - colored flash1 - short pause - (*white flash2 - short pause) - colored flash2. *this is how they work now in my alpha30, and it looks reasonable they are made to gain attention and when the flashing time is shorter they gain far more attention. 

Somewhere up there you asked about the money cheat. It's gone but you can set your amout of money via the terminal.I think its import("Game").player:SetMoney(100000) or whatever amount you choose. I can't test it because I'm still in Ubuntu upgrade hell. I got my system to use the Nvidia drivers after days of research and effort, but then I got an automatic update which just broke them again so now I can't run Pioneer.

"gone", well i expected it already.it suits ;)but it didn't suits to what i guess. i didn't know one, especially sim game without a sort of money cheat.yeah, of course i.e. for FE2/FFE it doesn't exist, but let's say "in general". restrict it (i.e the earthquake from old SimCity), maybe to a use of a hour and then kill the player, that's ok.but to remove it completely, even from a final release is not well thought from my pov. cheating is bad and kills the fun, for sure, but imho this should be left up to the player to decide if he likes to cheat a game. hmm... sorry but it reminds me of some of my old accusations, are they dictators or developers? (dictators ) ANDrecently when i look into the game i wonder how should one get himself the many 100'000 bucks the ships now cost?yes i noticed you earn a little more with the missions (of which i feel is much more unrealistic as cheaper ships, why should one pay you a 1000 bucks for a small service? he would be a dumb idiot. but that a standard eagle or shuttle won't cost more as a compact car i can imagine well, and then we have this difference between "GM" and "Hyundai" (i.e.) if you know what i like to say, some are quite expensive because the standard of the country is relative high, others are far cheaper but offer the same because the country is still on the border between industrialisaton and communication age. easy to imagine that old Terra will be a high price island like switzerland, while a far off colony will produce ships for a apple and a egg), but trading was useless already and due to such changes it becomes not only useless.that would be maybe different if you could gain more with trading.but is on the other hand neither what i see what will solve the problem. imho one should stay to this, "start with a cheap crappy ship, you gain nothing by selling it (i.e. sell the "eagle", what do you get for it in exchange?a useless shuttle or a lifter, no way to make a life out of that. unfortunately, we would have the possibilty to solve it different and give a ship without hyperdrive a use,with interplanetary scout or taxi missions one could start a career, but condition is that you gain enough or otherwise the ships are balanced in price to the income.if that is now realistic or not is not as important. i guess walterars scout plus is better balanced, he kept the old prices which aren't bad and you can as modeler even use a rule of thumb for the price of a ship.my rule of thumb was:tons of cargo capacity plus cost of mounted hyperdrive, plus/minus some what you imagine the ship is worth, a super fighter will be of course expensive while a crappy standard mass production ship should be cheap, really cheap, in the sense of the word cheap, a crap something you will hate after a short while.i say this because i played in my alpha30 a little and certainly in my version you sart with a interplanetary ship (a shuttle), it works and you can get yourself to a fighter only withscout missions, i would have liked to alter the taxi mission even to interplanetary jobs, but i lost a little patience with that attempt. recently i have no good idea how to set a price for a ship, my rule of thumb won't work anymore, and i have no idea based on what the ships are priced.looks a bit random to me, sorry.just like everybody likes to make his ship especially expensive, or whysoever. well ok i'm not a builder of ships tinted in gold, i like crappy cheap stuff with lots of drawbacks, just like in real life though you can argue about the "crappy quality they sell today" - "in the past everything was better". however, imho it should be possible for a player to say i like to play the role as a trader consequently and get from the starting ship (which is again or still a much to powerful and to expensive one, in other words sell it and you got some 100'000 creds.) to the most large transporter that exists in the game.seen fom the role i play in the game one could say "ok, i sold my ship, now i'm "wealthy" why should i take any risk? better do some easy living on earth with the money i gained from selling the ship, what about founding some business", this would be the logical step "Jameson" would do in the 33rd century. there won't be no need to fight or trade and risk your life to get a life out of it. but if Jameson gets "nothing" in return for his ship he has to do this job, if he likes it or not.i mean Jameson would rather prefere to sit on some beach and watch the babes instead to fly into the unknow dark. he's a human and no ubermensch. this works for old FE2 (sorry for the comparison), but in no way with pioneer. oh well in old FE2 you can start with a quite good cobra mk3, but with what drawback? a fine of a 10'000 creds of which you have neither a idea nor a good solution around "lave" to gain the money to pay the outstanding fine (besides of the black spot in your reputation which won't vanish). thus a player will soon return to the eagle, crappy or not, low in cargo or not. went right to my mind,i watched two weeks ago "starship troopers" (again, great movie imo), how do they get the ppl to work for the federation and become members of the fleet?they give them full citizens rights only if you woked for them, this forces the ppl to do this, else they would certainly prefere a easy life. really a cool story, crticized by many for the not to clear to see satirical message, accusations to clarke for beeing a faschistoid.i haven't read the book this i feel sorry for, but i still can, it's on the list of things i will do in short future. but the movie however i feel is great, really especially some germans totally misunderstood it, this i find funny, yes it's fascho and yes it's extremely american.(but i know that a lot of us germans have a problem with faschism, my mother i.e. certainly won't like such a movie and certainly she will misunderstand it, the reminescenses to the third reich are very offense and her memories are still fresh) everything is so american for us europeans in this movie, but this was the intention, it's brillant and even the message that a guy should look for the shroud girl and not for the beauty is so typical hollywood. but that's it, i like it. sad also they made sequels of it. the story is told i feel. you can tell it new with new sfx, that would be ok, but the story is closed if you turned around the last page. i wrote this even on YT, does anyone noticed the positions in the galaxy are wrong?the bugs live in the perseus arm and we apes somewhere in the eastern sector of the galaxy, well also cool to see, roles can be easy exchanged, who is in fact the agressor?who attacked whom in this story?aren't the arachnoides just doing what we would do, defend their own world and way of living?and arent we apes mean how we handle the arachnoides?just like the mean aliens from other sci-fi stories.then who is who?who is in fact the "mean alien"? phew, they debate about things i know well from this projects debates, is that reasonable to operate with "marines"?arming is so miserable, can't we imagine a more advanced technology?one wrote "we have since the 50's atomic bombs and they work with marines?"certainly clarke could have imagined something different, but like i always say what story to tell then?no the "good ones" (even if it's not to clear if they are the good ones) have to be underpowered,they have to work with marines and ballistic guns, this makes the story.a reader will identify himself always with the ones who stand in the weak position, one could say it's a sci-fi or a rule for all adventure stories.breaking this rule kills the story.if i like to let a viewer or reader understand a different civilistation, then i have to give them weaknessesif they should be the "mean mean monsters" they won't have any weaknesses.that is what has let dudes in the 50's throwing daggers on the screen, "i hate you goddamned opressor!" else it's "drop a star destroyer, story is told" that's not funny. in the movie the topped all hollywood cliches, drove it to the peak and this i think is great. it was (is) i cool debate about the movie, some are addicted to it and some hate it, already such shows me always that whatever it is in arts it must be goodelse there would be nothing to debate about and the positions wouldn't be so different.some you can see have avatars from the movie, they are certainly addicted to it, fans in other words.others like i said totally misunderstand it and you can't help them, whatever one says to intermediate, no they won't understand. i'm aware that there was times in my own life when i would have hated and misunderstood it, it was in those years after my brainwashing trough religion.i was a big sci-fi fan as a boy, but i left all behind me for a really brainwashing sort of education.and i don't lie if i say it took me decades to get completely free of it.for a long time i had reservations about certain things of which i know today it was only a product of the brainwashing. i hated gays, i.e., true, really, i had no sense for that (anymore, i wasn't allways this kind) and it took me really long to get rid of all the accusations.just as one example, there is more which took me long to get rid of. vice versa since about now a decade i can say i hate religious things, i'm still interested in spiritualism but it's now a sort of game for me.and i certainly know it's only good i'm a "fallen priest", there aren't many around of my sort and we can warn ppl about the dangers, because we experienced it.that religion has no difference to faschism, no matter which religion a good one doesn't exists, it will always depart ppl and lead to suppression,war and whatelse we say is mean. that it's contrary to what one could think will never lead to peace only to more war.misunderstanding between humans, accusations, departing, seperation, prejudice, a lot of no good typical human behaves. to close this "In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty."- Thomas Jefferson - and Vom Unbewussten zum Bewussten,von da zurück durch viele Pfade.Zu dem, was unbewusst wir wussten,von dort verstossen ohne Gnade.Zum Zweifel, zur Philosophie.Erreichen wir die ersten Gradeder Ironie-Sodann durch emsige Betrachtung.Durch scharfe Spiegel mannigfaltNimmt uns zur frierenden UmnachtungIn grausam eiserne Gewaltdie kühle Luft der Weltverachtung.-Die aber lenkt uns klug zurückDurch der Erkenntnis schmalen SpaltZum bittersüssen GreisenglückDer Selbstverachtung

damned i hate the macbook and the rotten touchpad you can't switch off, always i'm performing unwillingly things because my thumb occasionally touches it while writng,stupid really stupid that you can't swich it off. i lost so many articles due to that and sometimes i hate write down all thoughts again.if it would be mine i would have disconnected it already long ago, but it's my mom's machine and i don't manipulate her computer in such a way.(but i "hate" also my neighbour, he's feels disturbed at night by the clickedy clack of the keyboard, i know i hear him snore (almost breathe) as well, but does that disturb me?nah, you only get disturbed if you like to be disturbed. yeah, disturbs me as well when i sink in my bed at 6 am and he starts his damned tractor, no in fact doesn't disturbs me, but i could be if i would like to be. swoosh, and you find yourself three pages back, article is lost. at least not all is lost, again thx to clever ssc, not all the boards offer a autosave. "Boy where is your mother?" - "driven over by a tractor" - "where is your daddy?" - "driven over by a tractor" - "so what do you do (now)?" - "driving a tractor". my neighbour (and houskeeper) is a old bachelor, i guess he never had a wife, certainly no family, jsut like my landlord he neither was married, them think it's a waste of money to marry or that women cost only useless money (oh, in what hillbilly country do i live). he can't stop from working, it seems to be his only world. get yourself a family, please, get something out of life and gain distance and win humor in your age.from my point of view one has reached the goal with having grown up children, not everybody will get really relaxed after that, but i guess it would be the goal.you can be a cool old daddy or a tight minded bachelor, decide. truely it has some effect on the mind of a man (i guess women as well), if i guess of my uncle here in switzerland...he was so tightminded, i never liked him to well as a child, sports teacher, in fact the "boss" of all the sports teachers.biathlonist, marathon runner, bicycler, he never understood my lazyness.very stiff in some sort, he changed much in his age, looks like he understood that there are different things as only success.that life is worth living just because of. also you do sports to be healthy and then comes age and she doesn't asks much, elda sucks out your life and doesn't asks for permission.she really acts randomly and it won't matter healthy life or not, elda throws a dice, "you! come with me now".i was sitting often on levee by the channel, was watching all these runners and thought "hm... looks to me like you run away from dead, but don't you know he's faster as any man. he will overhaul you, sooner or later. better enjoy the sunstrokes, it worthes not much, but one can never know, those two, elda and her bro. act randomly. tommorow you are dead and what use had all this race (even the other race, the rat race)".we have in our society been trained to be successful and devoting to success.but is that "the meaning of life"? to be successful?many comparisons have been made why, natures principles and and and...but is that true?we humans reached (or would have reached) since long that everybody could live a relatively comfortable life, if some wouldn't be so eager to think it all belongs only to them alone.we have been trained to be successful only to serve them, that's no lie.ts, thats why the "sucker" (mule, donkey) thought very soon "what use?"it's ok to be interested in something, it's more as just ok to have a job and if both fits together it's a dream. the biggest advances haven't been made bacause of will for succes, they have been made because it was someones special field of interest.if this is your motivation, you really get most out of it.it's a sort of obsession, you can't let of it.sometimes it went in a wrong direction, but that doesn't matters.it's just not to do it for success, it's to do it because you can't live else. recently this reminds me of a sidestory of ST, Cochran who should have invented the Warp, he's character is pictured fine in ST NG.doesn't sees himself as the big man, neither likes that they put him on a socket.just done it because it was his special field of interest, not because he liked to be the biggest star on the sky.it's one of the episodes i like most, exactly because of this message and that we should strongly avoid to put ppl on sockets.not everybody has as much understatement as cochran, some only like to be put on a socket.a not so good motivation, because if that is your goal it won't matter how you reach it, violence (mustn't be of physical nature) and fear are the usual methods to gain this.a mass murderer will reach this goal as well and can be satisfied when we put him on a socket because his name is in everybodys mouth.he won't care to be locked up, often they even don't care to be executed, they was successful and reached their goal to be popular.though it's not really wrong if i ask "what's the worth of success"? - "it worthes nothing in my eyes".yes, one could say it's not good for the character of a human. The Red Cross is known worldwide, as well as Henri Dunant,but was his motivation success? no, he just saw all the dead and injured and must have thought "someone MUST do something against this and if i can't do something against war, then let me please help at least the injured". unfortunatly this country has getting in a state of devolution (not only this country), instead that we believe in such higher goals many see only the quick success. Henri Dunant's you search uselessly in switzerland now.but it will get human kind to nowhere and that's the sad thing about. it's like i said not the goal to be listed in a history book, or to be the most powerful or rich, mankind will forget you how powerful or rich you ever might have been.but a certain kind of ppl will be never forgotten, because of their work, what they thought and what they created.created not destroyed ;)build, not took profit of. --- you don't have to get old to get to this point, it's just that i sometimes feel you're not allowed to think this way before you are a grey.

It's interesting that you mentioned Starship Troopers because I was ruminating about it recently. I saw the movie many years ago on TV. I read the book many more years ago when I was a child and didn't really understand it. I really enjoyed it however, at the level my mind was at the time. It's by Robert Heinlein. I only remember that the Marines wore powered armour, which I thought was really cool. I was remembering a time a few years ago when I worked in an electronics parts store and we hired two high school buddies, one of which was going to college and the other wasn't. One day the one who was going to college presented me with his solution to global warming. Build a giant fan and blow all the carbon dioxide to Mars. He was serious. The only responce I could come up with is "You don't know where you are." I had to educate him about why his idea was somewhat impracticable. I discussed Starship Troopers with the other one. First of all, I thought it was really good. The discordance between what the government propaganda was saying and the evidence you could see with your own eyes is what imressed me. This guy didn't know where he was either.He didn't understand that the idea that the Bugs could launch an asteroid from their planet and hit Earth is also somewhat impracticable. It's been many years since I saw it, but the star map shown puts the system around 40,000 light years away by my recollection. The asteroid wasn't moving very fast when it grazed the spaceship, so it must have been launched before life evolved on Earth. There's also the problem of aiming something well enough to pass through the gravitational fields of the intervening stars and hit something at its exact point in orbit when it probably hasn't even formed the Moon yet. It also makes me wonder why a government that can make fleets of starships can't deflect or destroy and asteroid in a collision course with Earth. Could it have been a conspiracy? Could the government have launched the asteroid itself as an excuse to declare war on the Bugs and take over the planet, or did they take advantage of a fortuitous accident? He had no idea about this and simply believed the government propaganda. It was just an action movie for him. It made me realise how our government could use propaganda to drum up a war to conquer other nations, and people like him would be fine with it. Thank God that never happened! :music: He also thought that Saddam Hussein attacked the World Trade Center. I don't mean to imply that people are less intelligent or aware today than previous generations. I remember that when I was a child the percentage of idiots to geniuses seemed to be about the same as now, but here's an example I read on a blog somewhere. The author was at a party when he heard a colledge graduate ask,"Was that World War Two thing for real or was it just in the movies?"

cool! yes, the idea of a "runner" asteroid is a little overhauled i guess.not to imagine over such a distance and a story bound fact which must be disregarded, or if one likes to tell the story new, must be re-thought.passing through gravitational fields i can imagine, i even can imagine to use it for sling-shots, nonetheless no chance to reach such a speed as needed.i idea to renew this idea would be a giant gravital lens. but i guess such things can be simply disregarded, the core of the story is "us", is to set human kind into a possible totalitarian system,which is if i think right about it (if include the thoughts of the viewers on YT) not really a bad one.no more war amongst "apes", not bad.no more racial or gender classes, not bad.the fact that you have no citizens rights as a civilian seems to harm no one, it works. it's the price we have to pay for this, to unite under a probably even fictional agressor (fictional, because we have to include the possibility that we are the agressors and that we did this willingly only with the simple goal to unite the human race). the propaganda style in the movie is great and it seems it has predicted (easy) certain things. in fact such a "agressor" would superficial solve a lot of problems, by the cost of blood. it's not new and i guess heinlein (sorry for my cricketbrain, i guess i had the site up only a few days before and nonetheless i'm able to mix the names), just collected ideologies which existed already. technical questions i see a little as unimportant, the "runner" could be simply a lie? or started by human race itself, i liked this question and i would answer by the conditions of the story "i strongly assume it was started by human race itself" i mean yes, it's certainly to imagine that one who can build battleships can build quite other things as well, but it would kill a little of the story.besides how is the transition named originally? in the german movie translation they call it "hyperspace-warp", what i think is a bit funny, what exactly hyperspace or warp?i guess it's hyperspace this fits to the age of the story, i can't remember any old sci-fi using "warp". the armoured marines seemed to be missed by many, but i guess for the story it doesn't matters and i'm not sure if it only was a question of budget or less good sfx as today.the "naked" ape underscores his weakness compared to the arachnoides exo-skeleton. we paint a totalitarian system, still the viewer must identify himself with the human race, if we would have the upperhand it would look quite different and you would leave the theatre with a feeling that the human race isn't worth to live on this planet.(which would be truely interesting, to tell the story viewed by the arachnoides, such would have been impossible until now except for animated movies) we live on a planet of insects, fortunately they are quite small and no real danger to mammals, else...they are extremly strong compared to us,the exo-skeleton protects from many forces,they stand radiation much longer as mammals. do they have weaknesses at all?(breathing seems to me their weakest point, a very effective weapon against insects of all kind is oil).maybe it's because they reached a sort of perfection and there was no need to evolve further. fortunately, and fortunately we bite their heads off (phew... that was tight, fellow "squirrel")we are egg robbers, that's mean! -- "Thank God that never happened!"sure? "Was that World War Two thing for real or was it just in the movies?"i fear we will reach this state.well could be easy there is only some idiot like me left who can't tell exactly how it was but he knew there was something."back in those days when humans could fly - but no one ever found a pair of wings""when they still was able to walk on their two legs and had a upright walk" "Was that World War Two thing for real or was it just in the movies?"still amuses me.certainly not my brother, i'm just a imagination... grandpa is just a imagination of me as well as my mother. it would be a proper asked question "couldn't it be..." and we reach stories like "the Matrix".this question kills debates sometimes, i think it's pointless to ask if all couldn't be just a imagination.it wouldn't change a thing to me, still i would be the same guy with the same cricketbrain. there seems to be need for another biography?i don't know if i told this already, but my mother talks now a lot about her childhood and youth and i really had the idea to scribble all the little episodes down, it's nothing special or new to me,but last time, however, they sounded like new to me and i thought "could be a interesting story", could be? it is! how this girl came from germany over poland to austria, back to germany and finally found a home in the swiss alps. learned how to fly gliders, of which she told me right yesterday that it's something she would like to do for once again in her life.my father was fine, but he would never had allowed such, neither he would have understood why she would have liked to it again i guess, ha was a bit old fashioned and women don't risk their neck in his opinion (overall no one would risk his neck just for fun in his opinion, or one must be stupid. a tiny little bit to serious.) really some "classics" i can imagine well as a movie set.when they fled to austria it was '45 right at end of the war, they was first in a german camp, to be honest a camp for "german fascist youth", right when the u.s. marched in they fled again and lived somewhat off the city ("Leoben" i guess). the children was steady searching for food, sometimes stealing, they reached the u.s. camp and recognized that they collected the used tea leaves and coffee in barrels. knowing that it would still be useful for a tea or a coffee, they started to plunder this treasure. it didn't took long and the boys inside the camp recognized this, they offered them then food and coffee if the would sing for them. it came that my mother and her sister (favored with her blonde hair) sang "holy night" in summer of '45. a interesting fact, they fled from the u.s. troops. but one has to keep in mind that my grandpa was member of the SS and my grandmother feared to be longed for this.besides, i didn't think they would have ever harmed her or the children, but my grandmother couldn't knew this.neither i guess that they would have knew that "Fr. Klingenhagen" has a man which worked for the SS.Such informations they started to gather at this time, but started.His trail would have been (is) anyway lost in poland and later in siberia.nonetheless, when he returned in the 50's he lived under a false identity, and the family had to keep this secret.it's a bit a wonder that one preserved a photograph of my grandfather in his uniform, else they burned all such(i assume it was his second wife, which married again after his dead, but her second man was always only "the man after walter", literally.she kept a lot of things which belonged to him, unfortunatly after her dead the "man after walter" sold all of it). ok, I have no doubt WW2 wasn't only in the movies, yeah, but what about the next generation?how long will it take until the borders of history and story melt into one?until it isn't clear what really happened? i really never heard one asking: "Was that World War Two thing for real or was it just in the movies?".but i know that the borders are already blurred, i've read similar, only a little less attentive. to me it's part of my life, to my children it's already a past somewhere in the dark, they don't identify themselves with it, which my generation still did.David unfortunately never had much interest in history (dammit, in what has this boy interest at all? he didn't knows it himself and says: "i have no special interest neither hobby, i really have no idea what would be my profession") and Layla i know she would have, unlike him who was this kind already at age of 3, she liked to know everything at this age and even do everything, "let me...", how easy if children ask you "let me please help" (that means, it's only easy if you let them, which needs some patience and a little will). my biggest fear, i know my ex can't follow her, she would need input daily, a lot of input. she can jump like me from topic to topic, it's (was) easy for me to follow her thoughts, but for others? i don't know (patience foremost, with such children, it's really not good to stop them, but it needs patience and maybe the same inner restless feeling to answer proper to their needs. last time i visited her she was extremely nervous, but she calmed down very soon in my presence, because "i let her".the interesting thing is they seem to be unattentive, but that's not true they only get unattentive if the loose interest, or if you didn't give them the chance to tell the idea they had right now, and they have to tell it right now, not 5mins later, not even 5 seconds later, i know this feeling well from myself. as more pressure you put on them the worse it gets). further, i never understood that TV could be more important as children, besides it's not half of the fun. to be together with them was always great and i always liked to do "homework" and i really LOVE to paint dogs (or whatever). Yep, even i had "my Time",One hour after work belonged to me alone, as a law, that worked fine, both knew i keep my promise and after this hour i was ready for them. of course i love my doughter a tiny bit more as my stepson, fortunately they are of quite different age and it never played a role, even i had to experience this tiny difference myself.years i spent more with him. a statement like "it seems to me everyday i'm down the sun is hiding" you would have never heard of david, i guess if i would have said something like that to him he would have said "are you kidding? how can the sun be related to your condition, it's vice versa". it's somehow sad he was a "grown up" so quick, the very first years of his life he was alone with his mother and had due to her work manage his life himself already at the age of 3 (as much as this is possible, but get home by yourself and have responsability over a key is already much at this age. phew, i was seven and i still disliked it to walk home alone. responsability over a key? not even at 9, "cricketbrain" you know). i see his leak bound to this, life was serious to him when it shouldn't have been. it was hard to fascinate him with something, somehow i had always the feeling it bores him. it's however a different temperament and it was a lesson to me, because until i married i believed most or all is education and embossing, after my experiences with david i knew there is a certain character given at birth. one can be fascinated by looking at a flower, or my beloved toy, looking into a kaleidoskope, another one thinks that's just boring. while i guess in my case one had to take the kaleidoskope away from me to stop me from staring into it. and it still fascinates me. of something i say "remarkable" or "fascinating" he would only say "m-hm, ja" (not bad). --- edit:thanks for the hint to use the terminal to cheat some money, but i guess i keep the modified startup script, it's still a little easier or simply quicker to start with and i really only need it to check if everything works as expected. the MV and the game not only show the model different (lighting), they act also different (see the issue with the lower detailed landing gear, in the MV it works proper, in the game it fails). but i don't like to report a issue about that, i still think it won't be of much interest if i post something at all (except prob. here).and truely as long as only i have this problem because i use .x meshes for the gear, it won't be of interest. personally i would prefere them, especially after i readed the statements on "games dev" resp. the answers to the question if collada is suitable for a game.the echo was nearly all the same "no" and better use wavefront or DX meshes.but i can't decide about this neither my reservations about collada have been taken serious at the time they decided to use it.one could say, "this train has already left the station".however and whatever the drawbacks of wavefront or DX are, at least they are stable and one doesn't have to expect changes or much problems, the format is documented and approved well. "unfortunately" if one likes to be prepared for the future, then it looks to me he would have to return to a scripted or a format supported by a script.i'm aware this won't please most of the modelers, but i really see that this as the right step into future.modelers will have to work more and more with scripting languages in the near future, not especially scripted geometry, more to just assemble and make the models "alive", to let them communicate with the engine and be prepared for things you prob. can't see in advance. just guess, it takes me some time to setup all the nitpicking things like missiles, guns, scanners, but how long it takes already now to attach just a standard gun (not to attach them that cost's nothing, but it's still "under construction"), a few missiles or a (are you kiddin', animated) scanner? it was before all up to the modeler and it was only a few lines of text ahead.i wouldn't say such is impossible with any mesh format, like i said often naming conventions or the nodes are a key to it, but i can't see much progress in this direction.further i see already it will be "a one model fits all" method, which is imo not satisfying.i really assume we still have no visible and attachable guns because how should this thing fit to all the ships? it won't or not in this way.if that is a scanner or a gun, which is prob. individual for a ship should be designed by the ships modeler.missiles would be easy, but i can't see any i know they are anyway almost useless?while i'm not sure i need more experience with my recent alpha30 build, they are setup quite stronger, neither i think a "dart" is totally useless,at least i can remember that i hitted some targets in FFE with a dart, close enough and fired at the right moment, but they need a far higher acceleration.actually i'm on 80G's.i recognized while i made a first test that the autopilot method "kamikaze" isn't very good, the guided missiles (all) spin along all axes (on a straight course!), which means in fact a big loss of thrust.autopilot has anyway a leak, it's possible and i would guess also fine to have no sidewards thrusters (to yaw, the fwd and rev can work together, like the steering of a tank, practically i won't need sidewards thrust), one can control a ship very good without them, the real use of them is limited. strangewisely the autopilot quits his job if there is no (1Nm, 0 won't work anyway) sidewards thrust and if you set it quite low the autopilot has immense problems to reach a target, imho this shouldn't be and i wonder what for the autopilot uses the sidewards thrust in flight, as a human pilot i only use them for small course corrections while landing, prob. a use in fight ok, but anything should be (is for me) to reach with pitch,yaw and "vertical" thrust.not a big leak, but it limits the type of ships a little and even when i look at this fact we wouldn't need to setup all the thrusts if that don't works in the specific way i set them up.i.e. with the actual way how it's solved fwd, rev, and ONE uniform lateral thrust would be enough, because the rest has no real practical use, resp. confuses the autopilot.the leaking "kamikaze" mode is, i assume, even bound to this, no sidewards or missing of any of the lateral thrusts = no proper working autopilot.i assume if one likes to get the missiles working all types need all thrusts, likewise a ship and the only difference could be made in thrust power and not by removing of only one of the lateral thrusts. but the dart has only fwd, guided has only fwd and angular, smart only fwd, rev and angular and finally naval leaks as well of lateral (up/down left/right) thrustssince it's obvious (now) that the autopilot can't work without lateral thrusts, certainly the missiles will never find their target. in general i feel developers should appreciate that this will take some burden of them, but ok some just can't depend on others or would never order a job, sometimes i'm a "controlfreak" myself, but it's in general not a good way to lead a team, "give the workers responsability and they will like it" that's what i guess. my father neither liked "controlfreaks", while yes he knew also he tends to be one, you have to fight against yourself each day imho. but as example, he "inherited" the job as "industrial system developer". the man who made this job before him was a typical controlfreak, he only has let the employees knew what was recently needed, never showed them how he made the job (egoistic, why? feared someone could steal his ideas or his chair, better take it into the grave?) to have (development) secrets is fine (in textile industry this is very common, but i guess to machine industry it's pretty the same. you need some advantage against korea or whoever, we are expensive though we must find something the others can't do. "Seidendruckerei Mitlödi" still exists and i guess it still exists because of such technical secrets, italy, turkey, most countries produce a quality as good as ours but are much better in price, you have to find some niche, this could be better support, to fulfill every wish of your customer, a special technique, or a slight lead in developement. many failed in this "race", "Heberlein" (which was once the biggest exponent of textile industry here) lost it, even when they steady searched for new techniques and invented a lot. somehow they missed the train, they rested on their worldwide patent for "Hetex" (to crumble a synthetic and give it a grip like wool) 20 or 30 years everyone using his technique had to pay heberlein for using this. right after the ending of this patent the machine section of heberlein was closed and it was just a matter of time until it broke their neck completely. but inside you must share the secrets and trust the employees. i guess we invented quite some, but also sold things unwisely, "Sulzer" another well known machine builder which in fact started with textile machines, invented a silent (but fast) waving machine, the patent has been sold to russia, because the market here was to small for this special machine and cost to produce them to high."Sulzer" textile machines was closed when i still worked as a printer and the rest of the heavy industry branch of sulzer closed a few years later.recently "Sulzer" is only a brand (imho we have a little to much "brands only" in europe, that's fine for the investor but pretty shitty to generate jobs, makes some quite rich while the others have to depend prob. on welfare. not very wise. also self predicted, i remember when i started to work in the NPP "Sulzer" was a good, a to good name to work for. they payed highst wages to service technicians and they had nearly all the freedom, cars, traveltime, lunch all was payed by them. i remember that FIVE of them did the job which i did later with one comrade. they grew a little to wealthy. few years later "Sulzer" dismissed all the service technicians and hired them then temporary, this makes calculation easier, you are no longer in need to pay car, traveltime or lunch, neither responsible for life or dead of the hired technicians and i suspect some money flowed into someone elses pocket, who never had a only scent of oil on his fingers, therefore a lot of sticky honey of course the situation before was unhealthy for them, sticky fingers or not it would have broke their neck anyway.however there must be a balance between production, supervising and servicing, if one takes to much of the cake the company has to get bankrupt.simplyfied said, what won't work for three, won't work as well for 300 or 3000 employees. no idea if i say "we have three branches, but my branch is the most important thus i'm allwed to take the half (half? 7/8!) of the cake". no branch of a industry can exist by it's own, production needs supervising, purchase, sale. they need the production to sell something and finally who's standing on top needs all of them. but honestly industry is in a state of disbalance, since decades. supervising, purchase, sale they take more and more out of the same capacity, this can't work, "but well, let's hope it works until i retire, then i don't mind", what a way to live! 70% live by 30% of production, a child can calculate that this can't work.of course yes it's much more pleasing to work in a office instead to stand on the lathe, but unfortunately it's not very productive. by all the inbalance, the employee in the office gains more as the one on the lathe, this is neither clever or fair. not clever because i would say "we have enough dead wood", not fair because "who grants your income buddy? is it the fellow on the lathe or the one who "writes the bill"? money worthes nothing without a work or product behind it. yeah ok, it worthes for you right now, you get rich... and tomorrow? aha not interested in... i thought so. not only short sighted, it's condemnable. in most western countries it leaks of well educated workers, no one likes to be a worker, no wonder if you gain nothing with it. thus "everybody" is looking for something easy which promises a good income, - it won't.. no, can't work this way. ppl say "politicians must do something", but sorry they aren't responsible for this situation, we, each of us is responsible, some a little more, some a little less. if we like to produce further industrial goods, which we have to else the car won't run, we must change this inbalance of incomes, then ppl will like to work even if it's prob. a hard work, if it's payed well i see no problems. but who likes to work hard if the income isn't enough to i.e. feed a family? one must be a idiot if. - prob. it will change soon, because it really can't go on in this way.now i get alittle mean - salary based on burned calories, that would be quite fair, no? i remember well the mason who told me (he was drunk): "if my son starts to get educated as a mason i will flog him, he should better learn a office job" erm.. hmmm?! "don't you think mason is a good profession?" better i wouldn't have asked this, he started to tell me his story of downfall, how a mason turned to be a hopeless drunkard, sucked out by a unfair companion (you work - i gain the profit, as usual today). - "but you say yourself that your companion was a mean bastard, how can you wish this for your son, just because of the money one can earn? that's not wise" intermission to the intermission ;)personally, my stepson is a lazy bastard, but that's not as important to me as to know he knows how to differ between good and bad, stealing lying, defraud, that's not his way of living and to me this worthes more as all the money one possibly could ever earn. yes a bit egoism is behind that to see, i'm proud of that i grew him up to a rightous man, i would feel ashame if he wouldn't be. he doesn't have to be super, just rightous. not that i would think someone would judge this once, it's just because i guess it's a "different feeling", it's quite good when you can smile at the face in the mirror and say "hey not bad, at least you can look in your own eyes and in the eyes of others, that's quite something not everybody can" and it has even some advantages, in my youth i had some fellows who always protected me against school bullies or other "monsters" - "Gernot is (more then) ok." or how the jamaicans and africans on the street called me "Mr. Proper" he's always right, i usually never had to fear anyone because of this (there are exceptions, but neither i fear them). if the cricketbrain forgot his wallet, they handed it to me next day. be rightous - get handled rightous, it's easy. show respect - earn respect (erm, only with the cops i have a problem, the "show respect - get respect" doesn't works, why? resp. why not? i know why: "it's written in our constitution i have this and that rights" - no cop likes such i guess, nonetheless it's true (goddamn always rightous gernot) further it's our civic duty to know the constitution my "fellow cop". at least i see it in this way and i'm pretty sure it's in consonance with those who wrote this constitution (your's in fact) some 200 years ago. it's just my name isn't "Ms. Bacher" (Bacher is holder of Kuoni travel agency, his ex-wife was for a short time my girlfriend).whenever she had problems she just showed her american passport, ranted something with her big mouth about citizens rights (preferably in english so they needed a translator, she can speak german well, but never showed this to the cops) and if that didn't worked she showed them the card of her lawyer, which worked always. she said as well that it's a big injustice, me the poor but rightous craftsman with no handle and she has all the rights and a little extra just because of the name and the money. eh, it's not conform to our constitutions. i miss her and her big lip sometimes, a little crazy but exactly this is fine with me, a bit to hysterical ("showtime"), but from distance one can handle this, means if she started to get wild about me, i just turned my back on her, 15 mins later she was feeling ashame "gernot can you please forgive me?" (literally this sentence) besides this was uncommon to me, my wife never asked for forgiveness, vice versa, whatever happened in the end it was always my fault. but if both have a similar character, i can rant as well and if both are able to say sorry, then it works. i met her when she was still fighting in court with her husband and she lived already on the street, she left her husband not knowing what the future will bring for her, a bit unwise and finally she drove it over the limit, they had to arrest her, resp. attested mental insanity... right now, i never looked at it from this pov, it could be her husband had some influence on this. i guess if she's attested as mentally insane he doesn't have to pay one red cent. brrrr... rich ppl can be really disgusting.certainly not mentally insane, just a woman which was looking for some "life after dead", divorced men are crazy - divorced women, outch... especially if they had gave away their youth for the family like to live the missed youth in one day. "Black Heidi" (again a nick given by the africans, small, looking like 17, braids, black but in fact a pakistani - "haitithaiti" mix. "haitithaiti", i never noticed this until a week ago, i guess you know the song "girlie girlie" in one verse ."..one is a.. and one a "haitithaiti" i never recognized what it really means "haiti thaiti" spoken it's "hightitighty". to sad i guess i would have teased her daily with "haitithaiti") you will always have a special place in my memories. and i do liked to mess up the whores and pimps in zurich together with you, that was always great, i guess we played our role well and made them quite jealous. i lived in zurich door to door to a club called "Zukunft", but strangewisely i (we) almost never went there (nobody to mess up, only young ppl), i know it's a good club, playing usually house and minimal, but last month i recognized they play 60's music upstairs, thus i guess i will visit it more often, such clubs are rare and my usual "dancehall night" has been cancelled (club is closed) since a year or more. i guess i dance at least excessive, however one of the boys asked me last time, "what pills do you poked, can i get some of these?"i had to smile, and answered "no pills boy, but we can smoke a spliff outdoor".two other boys heared this and was laughing "do you heared this? no pills but we can smoke some weed"hmm... i'm 48 and guess sometimes i'm getting old and weak... no way dude, you can still compete with the 20 years old.(a little "secret" of mine, i don't drink or not to much alcohol at such a night i like to go to dance, orange juice is my choice then, drinking lets you get exhausted faster).besides i reached after decades the point that i know i wouldn't need nothing except the music, this turns me on enough and if you stay sober of course you have more power. end of intermission. - "who knows my friend, maybe tomorrow the situation will change and everything will be upside down, maybe he still won't earn a lot of money as a mason, but i know one thing, he will have work, no matter in which time he lives or under which conditions, masons are needed always. i think it's wise of him to learn this craft, he can still change after that but will never loose this craft". to return to the "feel", i can speak only for myself, but i don't know "how is the feeling for a father if he knews (and accepts) that his son is a liar?"i would really feel ashame and would think i missed the goal completely.or can gold balance this? to me never. --- once, long ago, Sulzer builded together with "Paul Scherrer" the very first and own swiss nuclear reactor, it failed or was prob. blown up willingly after they recognized it's better to take the reactors from GE. (if it has no use else, it has at least the use that we have our own results about what a GAU means. how this "feels" when a reactor melts, what precautions have to be made and how to protect the people). they simply have let the reactor running dry (without cooling), officially it was a accident "we didn't recognized the leak", but i suspect for real it was done willingly, the reactor was obsolate, what was the logical step (in the 60's)? "let's see what happens if...", obviousely yes what else use it had for us?or do they like to tell me (us) that the "watchmakers" aren't working precise enough? i say they knew everything about how it came to this "accident", but you won't have a second chance to melt a nuclear reactor, certainly they was aware of this.switzerland had her own mini tschernobyl, only under controlled conditions, quite smaller (a experimental reactor) and well hidden into the rocks of jura.the whole thing (cavern) was sealed right after.it's no secret (anymore), but i guess even to the swiss something many won't know at all.and yes, no matter if i worked temporary in a NPP, this information i have from "swiss school television", of course it's something you like to forget."Scherrer" himself explains in the documentation how it came to the idea, the building of it, purpose of it and finally the "accident".i never forget the glowing in his eyes when he talked about "his reactor", just like a schoolboy presenting his newest toy. if i'm right, back i the 80's when ppl started to rant against nuclear power it was still demented that such a experimental reactor has existed at all.some had some informations about it, but if the whole truth had been known... - 2000 (and some crippled) it was "past" and no one ranted anymore about that.interesting fact, especially the so called "green" political fraction propagates a stop of nuclear power, resp. the use of coal power plants...erm what? coal power pants? are we "devolving" or what? this is NO solution to me.yes coal is cheap, i guess germany will almost gift it (the reserves will last for 300years with the recent use of coal), but for what price?of course they are "clean" compared to old coal PP's but nonetheless it's coal and a fossile matter, the carbon doesn't belongs in this age (yearmillion).there is no chance for nature to compensate this amount of carbon (-dioxide or whatever chemical product of it).if we guess that it took yearmillions to build up the amount of oil, gas and coal we have (had), it would took very likely the same amount of time to compensate resp. bind it in plants.good luck, next 2million years... (and it has taken to account nature was in state of giantism, never no more produced this globe such a amount of plants)in fact to burn a tree is somewhat wiser as to burn fossiles, the trees amount of carbondioxide he compensated already in his life, in our time, if i plant a new one for itit will compensate the CO2 easy, the balance is held. anyway, i still feel better one NPP as one coal PP, even if there is some risk and storage of nuclear waste is still unsolved (or not well solved). and i'm not sure if those "green" politicians are really aware of what amount of coal is needed to replace a single NPP, even a rotten old one like "Mühleberg", 373MW output, of which you can substract easy 30% for internal use.to compare "Leibstadt" has 1.2GW output,for brown coal take this as reference, impressive how much coal it burns.the output is about 3 times leibstadt, but check just what it harms really to nature, by use of space for the PP (it's quite large) and by destroying large regions with the dredges.(i know for the uranium mines it didn't looks better, and it's a point which has to be solved, imo it leaks as usual only of money and will) but most of all the carbon doesn't belongs in our time, it's far to much.ah well you can bind the sulfur with calcium, it's known as gypsum (plaster), but unfortunately we have already mountains of it, we produce far more as we use.let's see if i find a suitable "small" coal PP,found one, "Voerde" (germany) for a total amount of 11'000 GWh / year they used 4'000'000 tons of coalto compare, "Leibstadt": 9600 GWh / yearquite a good comparison, power is almost the samethough one could say to replace "Leibstadt" you need about 4'000'000 tons of coal, i would like to ask those "green" politicians if they have just a idea how much 4'000'000 tons are?because that's the problem with large numbers, they exceed our imagination.let's do the calculation in waggons, one can imagine this better as 4'000'000 tons.a coal waggon holds, let's think big, 75m3 or 75 * 0.9 (as a very good specific weight for coal, dry and pressed, it ranges in fact between 0.4 and 0.9)let's think really big and we say 70tons each waggon. largest and most modern waggon of DB, capacity limit is 69.5tons, not bad my calculation (besides 90m3 capacity for this type, thus we can expect of the smaller 75m3, even less capacity limit in tons, but ok above seems to be the typical waggon used for coal, nonetheless due to the limit my 70tons fit exactly). 4'000'000 / 70 = 57143 waggons loaded with coal, dammit this number won't get much smaller ;)still 57'000 waggons are hard to imagine, quite a long train.about 150 waggons each day, that works but 100 waggons are still hard to imagine.really visualize this, 150 waggons, switzerland is small, i have already problems to imagine the length of the train resp. how this will be managed.just for the fun of it let's estimate the length of it,total length is 12.45 meters * 150~1'870 meters, or about two kilometers, for the united states i guess this will be common for a coal train or similar.but i get problems to imagine where to put this train aside, we have heavy traffic on the railroads here and goods only get transported at night.Leibstadt would be on the border to germany, while a location like Mühleberg would mean it had to cross half of switzerland.150 waggons daily, do they ever have thought about the logistical problems?if i look at my estimation, i didn't only think it's stupid to propagate the replacement of NPP's with coalPP's, it seems to me now impossible for this country.we have no connection to the sea, except yes the rhine, some coal freighters are still running up and down the rhine, up to basel much further you can't go. now like i said, 4'000'000 tons of something our planet never will produce again,4'000'000 tons of coal which don't belong into this time. imho, the destruction and danger of NPP's is minimal compared to such. and where or at which part of their body are the "green" really green, if they propagate coal PP's in 21th century?"greenhorns" that would fit. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk_Voerde[/url] fuel consumption of "Leibstadt": In order to be able to use uranium in the reactor of Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant,the proportion of U-235 must be raised from 0.7% to an average of 4.25%.This enriched uranium is used in the fuel assemblies in the formof uranium dioxide (UO2).Every year, Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant uses about 128 fuel assemblies of whicheach one contains roughly 205 kg of enriched uranium dioxide.This annual consumption amounting to just over 26 t of uranium dioxideis obtained from approximately 190t of natural uranium and corresponds to980kg of the fissionable U-235.Uranium is very heavy and energy-dense.The 26 t annual requirement of Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant has a volume ofonly about 2.5 m3 and would thus easily fit into the cargo spaceof a small delivery truck. https://www.kkl.ch/fileadmin/seiteninhalt/dateien/publikationen/technische_beschreibung_kkl_en.pdf[/url] NPP's are certainly not the best solution one can imagine, but i guess recently still the better one as thermal PP's using fossile fuel. and really i have no idea from where or based on what our "greens" have the imagination a coalPP could replace only "Mühleberg", which has to be replaced or we have to buy the nuclear power from france. Mühleberg has to be shut down, it's far to old.